by P. S. Power
“Well. Fuck.” He felt kind of miserable about it all. Like he should just leave, and not come back. He didn’t, since there would be fall out from what had happened.
Not knowing why he was doing it, Dareg pulled his handheld, and settled on the edge of his bed. It didn’t take long for someone to get in touch with him, though it wasn’t Timon, calling to scold him, or Tiera, saying he was no longer a prince. That was probably the truth, but the face on the screen in his palm was someone different than that.
A woman, who looked young. About his own age.
“Hello! I’m Kincaid Rue? Queen Tiera just told me that she was sending you along for the dinner tomorrow? I wanted to make sure you knew where to go for that.”
“Ah… I… Just kind of killed a man? A media person from Austra. I’m not certain that I’ll be welcome there any longer?”
The pretty woman made a face at him then.
“Sorry? What?”
“Some guy called Albright? He… he kept claiming that I was lying about Tor being my father. I warned him not to, and that I was going into a combat rage, but he kept doing it. So… I killed him.”
The woman in his hand frowned then, and shook her head.
“Or you could just say you didn’t want to come? This is the stupidest excuse that I’ve ever heard. Hm!” Then she cut the line. Upset with him for telling the truth. Calling him a liar for doing it.
Rage filled him again, feeling insulted for the fourth or fifth time that day. So he probably seemed a bit less than perfect when Queen Constance got in touch with him. She at least didn’t call him a liar. It seemed it was mainly people from Austra that did that kind of thing.
“Dareg? I just saw the news… Are you all right?” She sounded actually concerned about him, which was kind of her. She looked younger, due to her disguise amulet, but she was at least fifty. For all of that, she was sort of his sister, biologically speaking and had tried to treat him that way, he guessed.
“I… I’m not injured or anything. I keep going in and out of combat rage, but that’s normal. Bad this time. I tried to warn him… I really did.” It was important to him that she knew that, but the woman simply nodded, not making him beg her for understanding.
“We saw that. It’s playing on most of the stations. You did let him know about what would be happening, and even attempted to flee from his lies about you. The laws on Harmony are in question, I take it? In Austra you would have been in trouble, of course, but in Noram it wouldn’t have been a crime, at all, given the combat rage involved. Perhaps a payment to his family, though perhaps not, with the evidence being so against him as it is. You’re Aunt, Tamerlane, is coming for you at the moment. She was here when it all happened, visiting. Is that all right? I don’t know how you feel really.”
Dareg didn’t either. On the good side, his head didn’t really hurt any longer. It had for a bit, but that was gone now. He was about to try and explain that he was feeling a bit better, when the handheld suddenly changed, Constance being gone. Her face being replaced with Tor. Who looked angry.
“Dareg… What were you thinking?” He didn’t sound that bad, but it was still annoyed, and like he was speaking down at him. “You killed an innocent man, for no reason!”
“Innocent? No reason? He was calling me a liar. Not just once, but over and over! I told him to stop. I even warned him that I was going to kill the next person that did it, but he did it anyway. He practically forced me to kill him!” He sounded a bit more heated than he wanted too, but that was probably the combat rage coming back.
“That isn’t a good reason to kill people! I can’t… I know that I haven’t been a real father to you, but… I still expect you to behave better than this.”
Dareg kind of did too, but he also knew that he couldn’t have stopped himself at the time, not being pushed like he was.
“You know… Screw it. I give up. The Austran’s all think that you aren’t my father, you hate me now… Go fuck yourself. All of you. I don’t care anymore. You aren’t my father. Not really. You never were. Tell that to Austra! Maybe then they’ll leave me alone?” He was about to scream that he hated the man, but that wasn’t true. It was just the rage pushing at him again, so he just hurled the handheld away from him instead. Then he decided to leave, not knowing where he was supposed to be any longer.
Not there, but other than that, Dareg was nearly totally at a loss. He was used to not having a family, which he didn’t now, having thrown Tor away like he just had. Getting outside, he disconnected the little pod house from the small river that ran around the port, and tried to think for a bit. He had things there, but not all of them were his really. He couldn’t take things that had been provided by Tor. So all the gold had to stay. The pod house was only given to him because Taman had thought of herself as his Aunt.
Even the clothing he was wearing was like that. Given to him, but under false pretenses. Now at least. Thanks to Austra. An entire land filled with evil people.
So he worked quickly, filling his floating cases, if they weren’t already prepared. A lot of them were. Filled with magic that didn’t even make sense for him to have now. A giant transport system, big enough to drive a full coach into, for instance. A thousand jump ships, or what would be those, if he kept working on them. Which he might as well, he decided. They were about halfway done already, and it wasn’t like anyone would just hand one to him again.
Besides, once he had that, he could move anywhere he wanted.
Sitting down, after getting Tyler to make a small batch of tile amulets for him, he made a hundred clothing amulets, and then traded the one that he had on for the new ones. Things that he owned, that weren’t given to him by anyone else. It only took about half an hour, so he was just changing when Countess Thomson got to his door, simply opening it as he reworked what he was wearing.
“Dareg? I came directly, are you well?”
He nodded, then shrugged.
“I’m going to leave in a bit. I… Tor and I had a bit of a falling out over the murder, so… You know, he isn’t my father now. Not that I blame him. It’s for the best. So, that lets you off the hook? Thank you for coming, but, like I said, I’m not staying here long. I was just packing up, and… I know, can you return things to people for me? It isn’t that much really. The clothing amulet I got from Gerent. Taman’s pod house… That gold from Tor. A few other things that I needed to return to Sam Builder. Those are all in this box, over here? The rest is mine. I made it myself. I didn’t lie, or steal it from Tor.”
That part was important to him, but got the small woman, who looked nearly perfect, with her fine features and pristine magical clothing, to shake her head.
“I don’t think…”
He nodded then, getting her to stop.
“Right. I have no right to ask anything of you. Still, let people know that the stuff is here if you see them? Thanks.”
He felt awkward, but made himself move. The only real regret he had was that he had to leave Tam-Unit behind. She wasn’t his to remove, as much as he’d miss her. Taking her would be considered real theft, given everything. What might have been allowable for him before that way probably wouldn’t be then. What he could do however, was leave things that he’d made behind. Tyler would keep her filled, for instance, and she could let the little tile making device know what to do. It would be enough.
He started to just fly away, and then winced.
“Crud. My shield. It’s a jump shield, that Timon gave me. I…” He slipped it off and tossed it inside his old house. The place that wasn’t his now. That meant he wasn’t going to be able to fly away to make good on his escape.
That being the case, he just set the little hut back up, and walked inside, working with a bit of skill, and pushing, to get the cases to float in correctly. Countess Thomson stood outside, wringing her hands as she shook her head.
“You don’t need to do this. I don’t know what words you and Tor had, but I’m certain he won’t want to drive yo
u away. We could call and ask him?”
Dareg shook his head, and then turned to look at the woman, who was just outside the front of his transport hut.
“It… It’s probably better this way. The Austran’s all hate me, for being a bastard. I never asked for any of this. I tried to make it work. I swear I did, but they couldn’t let me be anything more than that. Tor… He doesn’t understand, you know? He’s tried too, but I don’t think he really gets me. Who I am. What I am. I don’t know what I could have done differently. I mean not kill that media fellow, I get that, but… I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t. The rage… I controlled it pretty well, I guess, but… I couldn’t do it under that kind of pressure forever. I don’t expect anyone to understand.”
The woman, who was not his aunt any longer, took a very deep breath.
“Where will you go?”
Dareg didn’t know. He waved at the box however, and then tried to come up with something that made sense.
“Someplace. I don’t know. Does it really matter? Just… Tell everyone that I won’t bother them anymore?” Then he got inside the box, touched the far wall to close the front of the thing, and looked at the menu that seemed to be inside the wall in front of him.
There were options, he knew. Harmony wasn’t a great plan at the moment, being a murderer there. Without being a Prince, that might actually be a bad thing. Even being one it could be, so that just made sense to him. Not being where they wanted to arrest, or even kill him, was a better than good idea. In fact, it was probably brilliant of him.
Most of the other ports would have been fine. He could live at any of them, or use them as a place to work long enough that it wouldn’t matter. Mars called to him, given that he’d built most of it. It was really temping for a lot of reasons. The city there was vast, had air, water and light, as well as gravity, and food units. All of which were things that he’d built. The city amulet had been left in his pod, so Alyssa could have it back, meaning that using it wasn’t theft.
True, the wedding was off, since it wasn’t fair to ask a Princess to marry some boy from Canton like he was now, instead of a Prince, but she might not care if he lived there, as long as she got to use his work. Even if she did, well, it would probably take a while for her to find him. It wasn’t like he was putting up signs at all the major ports or anything. In a few weeks he’d have enough ships to live on one of them, if he was kicked off that world too.
So, with no more than that, he reached out and tapped the wall, which took him instantly to a different world. The entire place was silent, but other than that, it wasn’t horrible. Not really. It was, if nothing else, a good enough place to work.
There, alone, he could rebuild his world. If he was careful, anyway.
He could, possibly, even build the family that he’d never had.
Chapter five
Dareg set himself up in one of the nicer dwellings that had been put in.
Not the vast one that he’d originally intended for himself and Karina, for when they were married, but it was a nice enough place, that had been well designed. It took a bit for him to figure out how to make a decent food unit, and he got a bit hungry while he did the initial part of the thing. Mainly because he was trying for something more advanced than what anyone else had done at that point. It was more like a Tam-Unit, except for food, which would share information about what was made between different places. That way, if a great chef made something on one of the devices, they would all be able to have it as an option.
It would also learn and correct for errors made in the moment. So if a little kid wanted cake, but didn’t have a good idea of what that would be like, their intent would get them something much better than not. Every meal would, eventually, come out being perfect, regardless of who was using the device. So it took several days, and more than one try, to get that done. After that he needed more small helpers, to go outside and collect material for him to work with.
Except that got scrapped after a bit, with Dare deciding that having new tunnels being made was a better use of materials and time. Not that he was using that much of anything so far. Eventually everything would be reused, including waste from the beings that lived there, and they wouldn’t need a lot more dirt and rock to make things from.
After that, trying not to be an idiot, he redesigned the space worthy shields. It was nearly just a wholesale theft of the work that Timon had done, including the jump field on it. The only real difference there was that he built the thing to tie into any of the jump networks that he’d built as well. It was a bit delicate, but he could, if any of the huts were put up anywhere, use them from any location in space.
That had been really hard for him to get right as well, since the shield had to basically form an invisible hut shell and interior around him when he did it, but working on the project helped him to kill time. He did that, and ran around the new city each day, since Tor’s child or not, he might still be hunted by the Adversaries. His mother was one, after all. For all he knew that was a death sentence.
Thinking about that reminded him of the whole mess that his life had become. A big part of it was due to his mother having abandoned him. Faking her death. Even if she’d had to do that, because it seemed like there had been no way for her to survive a heavy roof collapsing on her like it had, there was no reason for her not to come back for him. If there was… A thing that he just couldn’t imagine, then he was still as alone.
The Wizard Taman was supposed to be coming up with Tam-Comps that would be placed everywhere, allowing most large cities to be searched for specific people. Hopefully the idea having come from him wouldn’t be enough for her to end her efforts there. It was a vast project, and one that Dareg knew might be pulled, now that he wasn’t part of the family any longer.
Really, he probably should have left that first day, rather than let Taman and the others make any claims about him at all. If that had happened, well, then he could have gotten a simple job somewhere, and never would have known how to do magic or anything. No Adversaries would have come for him then. Not that he knew that as a fact. It might have been that he’d have been a target for, or drawn to, beings like that, no matter what, or where, he’d been.
Not having anything else to do really, he worked, and improved the vast city. One of the things he did was build store fronts, over what felt like months. Dare wanted food places to go in and eat, which would deliver food dishes to your table since it was nicer than always doing it yourself. Not that he didn’t put in units like that around the city as well. It required him to make something new, to act as wait staff, however.
A thing that, when he thought about it, could also be the start of his new family. Not a real one, perhaps, but still his. The idea caused him to realize that he might be a bit lonely, but it was still a good one. A thing that could possibly serve many purposes.
The idea was kind of similar to a Tam-Unit, or a Comp.
The main difference was that instead of being a version of him, the person that he’d made, having two arms, two legs and a head, looked like a fairly cute, slightly heart faced girl. All of them were the same, and they shared a single mind. Though it was capable of doing work in hundreds of places at once. She, and Dareg had decided to call her Samantha, since she was basically a girl version of Sam Builder, if better looking, had a few other tricks she was capable of however. She couldn’t make magic, but could understand food orders from words, and use the correct units that way.
Honestly, he’d made her smarter than most people, and left her with a complete, rather complex, mind. In a very real way, she was a person. As much as anyone else ever had been.
Samantha could also form real armor, and fight just as well, if not better, than Dareg could. If anyone ever attacked the city, they’d be met by an army that could fight without stopping, and take levels of damage that would make it a lot less than useful for anyone to try.
The armor was like his own, and would damage the city if used, but the Adversari
es could get around magic, at least part of the time. Letting the girls, who all looked to be about twenty or so, if a bit short, being merchant sized, not giants, make armor would allow them to be physical, in a real fashion.
They were all cute enough, and blonde, though the hair and clothing could change. For that matter, if Samantha wanted too, she could make any one of her bodies look like almost anything. That way the workers at different places could be individuals, or seem like it.
Which was one of the very first things that Samantha did, of course. Probably being bored, like she was. There was no one else there, just him, and while he was there, Dareg spent most of his time alone. It was just his fate, it seemed. Also, it had to be safer for other people, in the end.
It felt like he’d been there for a very long time, setting up businesses, and shops, including a magic one, like on Harmony, when someone else finally showed up. At first he didn’t notice that anyone was there, since they didn’t come into the city. That meant he noticed them when he took one of his new ships out for a test. The hangar there was vast, and a bit better constructed than the things on Harmony. If he did have to say so himself.
For instance, air would be created for the inside of the ship automatically, by the workers there. Those devices were more like Tyler than Samantha, but they did the job pretty well, and were good singers.
So the jump ship set up wasn’t that hard for him to get done, and the craft, when he took it out, was really big. Nearly full sized, and was just a copy of the ships Timon Baker had made. The thing was made rust red, in honor of where it was from. Mars. The surface wasn’t actually that color, but people would get it anyway, he bet.
So the visitor met him and three of the Samantha units as he came back, having jumped from Mars to Saturn, Earth, the new fleet and from there to Jupiter. The last place was so vast that just to orbit it meant moving back a long way.
It had a single, very thin and faint, ring around it, like Saturn had.
